An electric in color palette & execution original exhibited pastel by the Boston area artist Arthur Spear, who was equally adept with pastel and oils. This is titled on the verso The Young Diana in the artist’s hand, and was exhibited and likely sold at the Chicago gallery House of O’Brien during the 1920s. The image shows a young fanciful maiden in classical Grecian attire with a bow and dramatic orange shawl. Housed behind glass in the original carved wood American Arts & Crafts antique frame.
Arthur Prince Spear went to Paris to study under Jean Paul Laurens at the Julien Academy. Most of the artwork that Spear created was of otherworldly sea dwellers, mermaids, satyrs and nymphs and intended as fine art and sold through the Vose Galleries in Boston. The realm he choose to depict was quite his own, the occasional critic dismissed his paintings as “ornamental”.
The artist exhibited at The National Academy of Design, The Guild of Boston Artists, Rosenbach Gallery, the Carnegie Institute, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Arts Club.